The telcos have been offering 3G services through roaming agreements among themselves.
It's celebration time for Bharti Airtel, which last week became the third telecom brand in the world to cross the magic 100 million-subscriber mark in a single country. The gap between Airtel and its nearest competitor, Vodafone, is now about 26 million subscribers.
A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra declined to accept the proposal given by senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Vodafone, after he mentioned the matter. Rohatgi said they are willing to pay Rs 2,500 crore today (Monday) and another Rs 1,000 crore by Friday but no coercive action be taken against the company. He urged the bank guarantee deposited with the government by Vodafone should also not be encashed.
With Airtel and RCom already having launched their special offers for post-paid customers, and RJio around the corner, Vodafone makes its move with Red.
Jio is planning to win over 350 million 2G feature phone users by launching a smartphone at a fraction of the current cost.
The incumbent operators faced the onslaught of free offers and cheaper rates from Jio.
Vodafone has to sell its entire stake in Airtel following new norms issued by government.
Cut-throat competition, high spectrum costs, and frequent flip-flops in government policies have made it difficult for Vodafone to make money in the country.
Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile operator, and Idea, a smaller rival, have agreed to pool network infrastructure in a joint venture that may in the future seek a stock exchange listing.
The company has a valuation of Rs 2.22 trillion, up from Rs 1.33 trillion a year ago.
India's largest telecom operator in terms of subscriber numbers has been struggling to raise its share of subscribers in the market for fourth-generation technology services.
The company added 95 lakh new 4G subscribers taking its total 4G subscriber base to 7.53 crore inching closer to its peer Bharti Airtel which reported 4G customer base of 7.7 crore.
Conversion of debt of the stressed telecom player Vodafone Idea Ltd (VIL) into equity could be an option to emerge out of the crisis, lenders led by State Bank of India (SBI) have suggested to Department of Telecommunications (DoT). DoT had called senior bank officials on Friday to discuss the stress in the telecom sector arising out of the Supreme Court order last month on the adjusted gross revenue (AGR)-related dues payable by telecom majors, including Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel, sources said. The top court has given a time period of 10 years to telecom service providers struggling to pay Rs 93,520 crore of AGR-related dues to clear their outstanding amount to the government.
Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and other telecom operators may have to pay the government a whopping Rs 1.42 lakh crore following the Supreme Court order last week that sent shock waves through an industry already grappling with billions of dollars in debt and an intense tariff war to retain customers.
Bharti Airtel on Thursday submitted its bid for 3G spectrum, auction for which starts from April 9.
The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led firm on Sunday approached its competitors to set up intra-circle roaming and other processes in the way it is done by the sector to respond to disasters.
The clarification comes a day after Vodafone signed a shareholders' agreement with the Essar group.
India's telecom subscriber base grew to over 1.17 billion in October with Bharti Airtel maintaining its leadership in mobile subscriber addition that accounts for over 98 per cent of total connections in the country, according to the monthly report released by sector regulator Trai on Wednesday. This is the second consecutive month when Airtel added highest number of subscribers. In September, it had regained the leadership position in subscriber addition after a gap of four years. The Sunil Bharti Mittal-led company added 3.67 million new customers in October, taking its total wireless customer base to 330.28 million in October 2020, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) report said.
Bharti Airtel will start talks for "disengagement" from its partner Vodafone once the UK company decides on its future course of action in India.
Singapore Telecom is believed to have sought the removal of Vodafone representatives from the board of Bharti Airtel, following the British telecom major's bid to acquire a majority stake in Hutchison Essar.
The latest ad, done by O&M again, Vodafone's ad agency, shows two engineers tinkering away in a dimly-lit highway tunnel.
Vodafone and Bharti have pointed out that, for data, their revenue realisation should be at Rs 30-35 per GB for them to cover their costs as opposed to the current figure of over Rs 11 per GB. But Jio has suggested a gradual increase to Rs 15 per GB and then maybe to Rs 20 per GB after six to nine months.
With this, the Bharti group companies had enhanced their voting interest in Bharti Airtel to over 50 per cent, the company said in a statement.
Amid an existential crisis facing the firm over Rs 50,000 crore unpaid dues towards the government, billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla on Wednesday stepped down as the chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd. Birla -- who had in June offered to give away his holding in the joint venture with Britain's Vodafone to the government -- will cease to be a director and non-executive chairman of the company at the end of business hours on Wednesday, VIL said in a filing to the stock exchanges. It did not give any reason for Birla's decision. He will be replaced by Himanshu Kapania (who was earlier managing director and CEO of Birla's Idea Cellular) as the new chairman of Vodafone Idea Ltd.
A new board has been constituted for the merged entity 'Vodafone Idea Ltd' with 12 directors (including six independent directors) and Kumar Mangalam Birla as its Chairman. The board has appointed Balesh Sharma as the CEO, the companies said in a joint statement. The combination will have an all-India revenue market share of 32.2 per cent and take the numero uno slot in nine telecom circles, it said adding that both Vodafone and Idea brands will continue.
The brand integration not only marks the completion of the largest telecom merger in the world, but will also set the company on its future journey to offer strong digital experiences to 1 billion Indians on its 4G network.
Adjusted gross revenue of the industry has grown just 5.3 per cent during the financial year ended March 31
Vodafone, Airtel, Idea provide services without spectrum.
The explosion in online video consumption is pushing TV and film companies to fine-tune their internet strategies.
The current termination charge is 10 paisa a minute.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) on Tuesday postponed the spectrum auction by 19 days to June 25, as per information available on its website. According to amendments made in the notice inviting applications for bids on Tuesday, the new date for "start of the live auction" has been changed to June 25 from June 6. The government will auction eight spectrum bands for mobile phone services at a base price of about Rs 96,317 crore.
Total wireless subscribers increased from 1.1 billion, in January to 1.2 billion in February, thereby registering a monthly growth rate of 0.72 per cent.
This equity capital infusion is the country's largest-ever FDI.
Contrary to reports that world's largest mobile phone company Vodafone is planning to bid for South Africa's MTN, the UK-based firm has said it is not in the race to acquire the African mobile major. "Vodafone has ruled itself out of the running to acquire South African mobile phone group MTN, paving the way for Bharti Airtel of India to take a majority stake in the company."
VIL, in which Vodafone holds 45.39 per cent stake, is staring at unpaid statutory dues of Rs 53,038 crore, including Rs 24,729 crore of spectrum dues and Rs 28,309 crore in licence fee, and has already warned of shutdown if no relief is given.
Airtel reported a 19 per cent rise in its ARPU in the March quarter, as it removed the non-paying users from its network.
Loop Mobile has debt of Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion), which is likely to be included in final deal size.
His comments come little over a week after Vodafone sold its entire 3.2 per cent shareholding in China Mobile Ltd for about 4.3 billion pounds.
Ambani to up ante by $3 bn on Ruia's hint at larger premium.
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